ideas, critiques, musings, discoveries

Online learning…CreativeLive

The more I learn, the more I realize I have SO much to learn, yet I am loving all the ways my brain is being stretched these days.

Take for example Creativelive.com. I discovered this website/learning tool at the CreativeMorning lecture I attended in August. I have been hooked ever since!! Not only do they offer reasonably priced workshop/webinars to download BUT they also have many free online classes!

Just to give you an idea, the most recent CreativeLive webinar I watched was with Jessica Helfand and Michael Bierut: Thinking like a book designer. Although these two Yale professors were discussing book design, their exposé on layout, delivering a message, use of grids, and more, were so relevant for my learning.

Here are three designers whose work they touched on that I found most intriguing:

Paul Rand, an American art director and designer who created the logo designs for IBM, UPS, ABC, among others. They emphasized his strong use of colour, the way his designs engaged the viewer, drawing the audience into the book, and they pointed out the need to learn the rules before you can break them.

Paul Rand’s intriguing designs

Next was Chip Kidd, whose book designs speak for themselves…he is so prolific, so creative and emphasizes the human propensity (and therefore importance) to “judge a book by its cover“.

Collection of Chip Kidd’s work

Finally, Michael Bierut talked about his mentor Massimo Vignelli, one of the greatest 20th Century designers, who believed you shouldn’t build anything without an underlying grid, to give structure and cohesion…so relevant for designing responsively for the web.

Master designer Massimo Vignelli

A few other take-aways of note from the webinar included

the theory (and importance) of using asymmetry in design, as the mind has to work harder to understand it (eg., 5 columns vs 4, 3 rows vs 2) and therefore remembers it more.

balancing what is expected or structured with what is different/new/creative

book design as performer…how do we entice and say: “look at me”.

And that was just one class I watched. There are so many to choose from and CreativeLive just keeps adding more and more webinars to their list…a great way to learn!